Leavin' on a jet plane...

So it's my last night in Freo...weird.  Some people have already left, some are leaving at 3 am this morning, and some (like me) are leaving at 7:30 am to catch our flight to Cairns.  Leaving Fremantle feels weird, and different than any other time I've had to leave a place.  I think that's because when I leave school for home, or home for school, I know I'll eventually return.  But this time, I know that I'm pretty much never going to be coming back here, so it's a permanent goodbye.  

But even though it's a little bittersweet, I'm SO super excited for the next two weeks of traveling!!!  I probably won't post before I get home, since I have a feeling the only internet I'll be able to use between now and then will be the $1/15 minutes version.  I'm going to try to keep track of the highlights in a little journal Kdub got me for this very purpose at the end of last year, but I kind of suck at maintaining non-virtual diaries, so we'll see how that goes.  Regardless, I should have a ridiculous amount of pictures when I return (although my camera has decided to hate me by failing to zoom anymore, so don't expect any close-ups, lol).  

I feel like this post should probably be more introspective and full of mushy stuff about what an amazing experience this has been, etc etc (and it absolutely has, don't get me wrong), but I have to wake up in less than 5 hours and I kind of want to get some sleep before my two weeks of non-stop travel begins!  I might do something like that later, but who knows.  

Anyway, I hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving!  I'll be spending mine in Sydney, where they don't have to give thanks for any kind of harvest and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will almost certainly not be on TV...but I'll survive :)  

<3

Birthday Week!

So apparently I was subconsciously really afraid my birthday was going to be super lame.  Over the course of the semester, I had 3 dreams involving my birthday being pretty pathetic.  Seriously.  The first one happened a good month or so ago, but the last two were both in the past week.  They're actually pretty funny, so I'm going to recount the highlights...

Dream #1 - I spend my birthday eve volunteering at a prison.  Midnight hits and I feel like a huge loser because no one cares.  My friends take me out to a restaurant/bar the next night for my birthday, and we get there to find the place completely empty.  The drinks are expensive (the horror!) and no one is really in a celebrating mood at all.  Two of my friends move from the bar to a table so that they can read the books they brought with them.  The waitress realizes it's my birthday and brings me a free dessert - a twig of crystallized sugar.

Dream #2 - Me and my friends go to some fancy hotel restaurant for my birthday.  As soon as we get there, the waiter finds out it's my birthday and goes to get the celebratory dish: a plate of four hotdog-type sausages.  And I have to eat them right there, before we sit down.  And I have to eat them in under a minute.  I agree to do this for some reason, but I just barely don't make it under the minute mark.  I then proceed to feel sick and want to puke so I can enjoy my actual dinner, but this is impossible.

Dream #3 (which occurred during my nap before my birthday dinner) - I'm napping before my birthday dinner.  My alarm doesn't go off, so I wake up 15 minutes before we have to leave.  I wake up panicked because I still have to shower and get ready.  I leave with two of the guys from Port Lodge that I hardly know at all, and we're walking down a road in some rural area.  We finally stop to wait for a bus, and we're sitting on the edge of the road, which is right next to a creek.  A huge gross fish jumps out of the creek and onto the road next to me.  I think it's trying to get me and have a mild freak out.  It wiggles it's way into the road as a bus comes barreling towards it.  I realize what's about to happen and turn my back.  The bus runs right over the fish, making a loud disgusting squelching sound as fish guts are sprayed everywhere, including all over my back (sidenote: this was undoubtedly the grossest thing that's ever happened to me during a dream).  I try to rinse my back off in the creek.  We go back to Port Lodge to re-shower, but now it's also partly a school building and I'm unable to find the shower.  I end up in the library in my towel.

It doesn't take Freud to figure out the underlying meaning behind these dreams.  I just never realized I was that nervous about my birthday being lame!  Thankfully, my actual birthday bore no resemblance to ANY of those dreams and was really great :)  It was actually stretched out over a whole week since I had finals the day before, the day of, and the day after it (at 9 am nonetheless). 

It started Monday when I heard some mysterious noises outside my door as I was studying.  I opened it to find Andria, Katie, and Sam putting a countdown to my birthday on my door (set to 1 day, haha).

Monday night was spent studying for my Asia Culture exam the next day at 2.  My attention started to wane around 11, when me, Katie, and Jackie investigated a mysterious painted-over door in the downstairs hallway that we had never really noticed.  Port Lodge is pretty old and is rumored to have ghosts, so we got ourselves pretty freaked out about it.  Jackie pushed a knife around under the door (still not really sure what that was supposed to accomplish), and then we heard Christina from the other side of the door.  Turns out the door sits behind the food lockers that we use every day, and Christina was getting food out when she saw the knife poking through below the lockers.  She could even hear us freaking out about what could be inside this supposedly sealed room.  Needless to say, we felt like idiots and I laughed about it harder than I've laughed in a really long time.

At midnight, a bunch of my friends came to my room to sing happy birthday to me :)  Betsy made banana bread, so they stuck some candles in it and used it as cake.  Also, Katie got me a 21st birthday shot glass and I may or may not have been forced to use it to take a celebratory 21st birthday shot...

Once everyone was gone, I went out of my room for a while only to return to find a brand new set of decorations - in red and green, since apparently it's embarrassingly obvious how much I love Christmas (organizing Christmas Day back in September probably didn't help...)  These were also courtesy of Andria and Katie, who were basically responsible for making the whole week awesome for me!

Somehow at the beginning of the semester, Betsy and I decided that McDonalds breakfast is pretty much the best thing ever and that we would treat ourselves to it on the morning of my birthday.  We actually managed to remember this over the course of the past 3 months, so at 8:45 that morning (we had to get up early to keep studying for the final later anyway), me, Betsy and Steph walked over to McDonalds.  We go in and I'm about to turn to look at the menu when I catch a glance of the outside seating area.  It turns out Katie and Andria decided to come early and surprise me (and they dragged Mike along with them), and they had put balloons on the table and a fluffy light-up birthday crown for me :)  So we get breakfast and as we're eating, Andria gets a phone call, leaves, and returns a few minutes later with a gorgeous bouquet of lillies.  Katie (Perth/3W Katie) had ordered them for me and they happened to get delivered during breakfast, so that made the whole surprise thing even better!

The rest of the day was spent studying for and taking my Asia Culture final, and then studying for my Australian History final the next day.

Once my Australian History final was done, I could breathe a (small) sigh of relief, since my next one wasn't until Friday morning.  Wednesday night was my birthday dinner, which was at a Mexican restaurant called Zapatas.  Aaand I'll go ahead and be honest and say that the main reason for this choice was the drink special of $10 carafes on Wednesdays (but for the record, they were delicious!).  It actually ended up being a pretty big group (about 25 people); Katie and Kenzie came from Perth along with a couple other kids that I know from there, plus a lot of people from Port Lodge, plus some other people too.  It was a lot of fun :) 

Later that night we went to The Orient and I got to experience the glory of birthdays...having other people buy drinks for you all night, haha.  I somehow ended up wearing my birthday crown the entire night. 

One of the funniest parts of the night was definitely when Arthur and Aron, two of the guys from Perth, sang happy birthday to me as a karaoke song...and actually watched the monitor for the words.

As far as the rest of the week, it was basically filled with more studying - this time, for my Business in Asia final on Friday morning.  After that final though, I was done until Wednesday, so Friday was extremely relaxing.  Andria and I went to the markets to look for souvenirs and then on a run, and later that night we had our end-of-the semester dinner and presentations for the study abroad program.  It basically consisted of a wrap-up/inside jokes from each of the residences and then a slide show of pictures from the semester.

That night we went out to The Deen and The Paramount, which was really fun. That night basically marked the end of my week-long birthday celebration, and all-in-all it was awesome (minus the whole finals thing).  I think it's safe to say that none of it resembled anything in any of the dreams I had!

So that's pretty much it for now...the rest of the weekend involved wandering around Freo, going to the beach, checking out an Aboriginal festival in the park, and watching a parade for the Fremantle Festival, which is apparently the biggest event in Fremantle.  The parade was a little out there but had a ton of personality, which reminded me of Freo itself.

Now I have 5 days, 1 final, and a lot of packing before we leave Freo for good on Saturday morning.  I'll probably post again before then though.

<3

Eeeek

Is it really almost the end of my two relaxing weeks before finals?!?!  Sadly, the answer is yes.  Soon the kids in Thailand will be coming back and we'll all be freaking out about the impending week of non-stop essay-writing that is finals. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration.  But most of us DO have 4 finals next week, and all of those finals are essay finals...lovely.  I'll be so happy to go back to the business school at ND where the most you have to write is a paragraph for a group project (also possibly a slight exaggeration).  ANYWAY, I figured before I get into serious study mode today I would update y'all on how my 2 relaxing weeks have been!

Last Monday: Class for Asia Culture consisted of our lecturer Shaphan telling us how to study for the final, showing us how to make paper cranes, and taking us to the bar after class.  Andria and I were already in running clothes though, so we went for a run after class instead.  It's amazing how much nicer it is to run when there's a beach waiting for you at the other end of your route.  Also went to what would end up being our last footy practice (I'm guessing), but there were hardly any of us there so it wasn't as fun as it's been beore :(.  Monday night a bunch of us went to The Deen and we met up with some of the Perth kids.  Overall a pretty good night.

Last Tuesday: Went to the Qantas office in Perth to get some flight stuff straightened out.  That was the first time I had ever ridden the train from Freo to Perth by myself, and it was such a liberating feeling to do that and go into the city alone.  Then I realized that even the young kids here do that all the time and felt kind of silly, lol.  I guess growing up in a suburb I never really got to have that kind of experience.  Anyway, I got everything worked out, then came back to a nearly empty house.  Most of the kids went to the house of some other study abroad kids for Beer Olympics, but I just didn't feel like drinking my weight in beer so me and a couple others stayed back.  Then later that night we went to the Cottesloe Hotel (a bar, not a hotel) for the night.  We ended up having to sprint from Port Lodge to the train station to catch the train there (not the best idea...ugh) and when we got to the train we had a good 60 seconds to spare.  Oh well.  It was definitely an interesting start to what ended up being a really fun/entertaining night.

Tired faces after sprinting to the train station

Waiting at the train station to go back to Freo

Last Wednesday:  Again, class (Business in Asia) was cut wayyy short and really just consisted of telling us how to study for the final.  I don't really remember what I did during the day besides maybe go on another run with Andria.  We had our last Christology class (THANK GOD...no pun intended lol) which still went two hours because our lecturer is lame - actually wanting to teach us...who does he think he is?!  After that we all went to watch the last game of the pool tournament that the university sponsored, mostly because they promised to feed us afterwards.  Then they were having a massive ping pong tournament, and for my first game I had to play Michael, who of course is really good at ping pong so I didn't go any further than that match (sorry for tarnishing the Maloney ping pong reputation Dad, haha).  I lost 9-11 though, so it was at least close.  Going out that night consisted of staying close to home by going to the Orient.  The Perth kids were there so we 

got to see them again, which was awesome.

3 West...Australian Edition

Last Thursday: Went back to Perth to try to book the rental car for New Zealand with my voucher...didn't work but I did find some good replacement sunglasses for the ones I lost on Rotto so all-in-all not a completely wasted trip.  Our last Macro class went for the full 3 hours (boooo), BUT afterwards the university fed us again (!!!) in the form of a Halloween party with meat pies and sausage rolls.  Most of us were still pretty Halloween-ed out from the party last Thursday so we didn't dress up and just went for the food, haha.  Thursday night was frustrating because we were going to go to Claremont, which I had only been to once before but loved, but I made it all the way there before realizing I didn't have my passport with me.  THAT will definitely never happen again.  So I ended up coming back to Freo and staying in that night.  Good times.

Last Friday:  Final class of the semester - Australian History.  No more classes until mid-January!  Lunch with some of the girls at the Burger Bar (chicken sandwich with cheese and avocado...) then massive nap :)  The kids going to Thailand left that night, and those of us who were left went out to a place I had never been before called The Loft.  It was kind of lounge/bar and was more adultish than anywhere we've been so far, but it did have an amazing view of the harbour!

Freo Harbour at night

Saturday:  Slept in for a long time, then went with Katie and some of the guys to Cottesloe Beach for the afternoon.  It's the nicest beach I've been to so far in the Freo-Perth area (the sand felt AMAZING) and basically we just sat around and listened to music and read on the beach.  It wasn't warm enough to go in the water though.  Saturday night a bunch of us decided to spend the night at UWA after going out to watch the ND-Pitt game on their big projector, so me, Katie, and Tom took everyone's stuff to UWA and left for Northbridge from there.  We met up with everyone (including some of the Perth kids who we convinced to go out instead of staying in that night) at The Paramount and ended up staying there for 4 hours!  The music was really good and it was fun, but it was definitely the longest I've ever stayed at a club - basically from 10:30-2:30.

Sunday:  After The Paramount, we went back to UWA and watched the game...soooooo sad.  I managed to stay awake for the entire first half, but fell asleep during half time and didn't wake back up until the end of the 4th quarter.  Then of course I had to stay up for ALL 4 overtimes, and by the time it was over everyone was super tired and cranky.  We dragged ourselves to the UWA dining hall for breakfast and some of our group left to go back to Freo. Me, Katie and Tom decided to stay to go to the Red Bull Air Race, though, so we got changed and took the bus with a bunch of the Perth kids to the park where everyone goes to watch it.  I don't really know how we were still functioning at this point.  But we got a spot in the sand and (after copious amounts of sunscreen were applied) laid down to nap for a little while since the air race didn't actually start until 11.  I'm glad we saw it, but after the first 2 planes Katie and I were ready to leave.  So we came back to Freo, and the rest of my day went something like this: sleep. mass. sleep.

Going through the course

Me and the Katies

Monday: This was a pretty chill day - caught up on Grey's and The Office, went grocery shopping, did some planning for New Zealand, went on a run.  Monday night we went to The Orient and played cards in the back room, which ended up being really fun.

Tuesday: Let's see...I don't remember what I did during the day besides go for another run.  For dinner Katie and I went to this place called Amano Gelato that I had been wanting to try - $5.90 for a decent-sized piece of pizza and cup of gelato (white chocolate, in case you were dying of curiosity).  And that's Australian dollars, so with the exchange rate the way it's been going it was practically free! ;)  Most of us decided not to go out Tuesday, so instead we watched Thank You For Smoking, which I highly recommend if you like sarcasm and satirical humour.  It's a funny one.  Afterwards four of us lounged around on the couches in the dark trying to think of something fun to do, and three hours later we realized that it was 1 AM and we should probably go to bed.  

Wednesday: The majority of late morning/early afternoon was dedicated to watching the election coverage.  It was sort of weird because while the news stations here had some of their own coverage of it, mostly they just streamed CNN so basically it was like watching it from home.  Also, Katie (Perth/3W Katie lol) came to visit because she was getting back from Rotto that morning, so after Obama's acceptance speech we just hung out for a while until dinner (which consisted of some of the best-tasting nachos I have ever eaten...sooo good).  Wednesday night is karaoke night at the Orient, so we all went there after dinner.  After watching some inspiring performances of "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" (Mike and Kmart) and "Roll With Me" (Kim and Steph), I finally decided that almost 21 years is too long to go without ever having done karaoke, so Mike and I channeled our inner boy-bandness and sang "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys.  I always thought that I would have to be quite drunk to ever do karaoke, but I wasn't that night and it really wasn't bad!  Actually it was pretty fun :)  After that Katie (3W Katie) and I were going to sing "Livin on a Prayer" but they stopped taking requests...boo.  Maybe in two weeks after I have my last final though...  When we got back to Port Lodge Kmart had the brilliant idea to make cookie dough, and even though we definitely didn't have the right ingredients it still tasted pretty great (although most things do when you get back from a bar).

I've found my new calling...ok not really but it was fun

So that's been my study week so far.  We've been pretty bummed that the weather hasn't been nice enough for us to hang out at the beach during the day, but we've managed to have some fun anyway.  You might have noticed that study week hasn't exactly lived up to its name, but I keep telling myself that that's because I work better under pressure.  Besides, now that this post is out of the way I'll be able to sit down and focus.  Well, after dinner at least :)

Yes, it happens in real life too

So I walked into a pole today.  I always thought that was something that just happened on TV or in movies, that it's too ridiculous to happen in real life.  Turns out it's not because I have a lovely bruise developing on my forehead, lol.

It seemed like something that deserved a post of its own...

Done (!!!)

Right now I stand on the brink of what will hopefully be two of the most relaxing weeks I've had here.  Here's how I got here:

Last week, Monday-Thursday:

Pretty much all I did was write papers, almost exclusively.  Some interesting parts of the week:

-A mission with my friend to try to get ten ridiculous vocab words into our first paper due (for me, Asia: Culture, Environment and Development).  When I had gotten 8 of them into my paper and he had stopped trying at 2, it turned into a bet.  So when I finally got all 10 of them in, he had to buy me a drink at the Halloween party later in the week...score.  Here were the words: Coagulate, bequeath, advent, nexus, amalgamate, entrenched, voracity, palpable, divisive, and decrepit.  I think coagulate was the hardest one to get in there.  Or maybe decrepit...anyway

-Halloween shopping for the double birthday party/Halloween party that 2 of the Port Lodge kids had on Thursday night.  Costumes explained later in the post :)

-My very first all-nighter.  Maybe not so much a highlight as a lowlight, but it was still definitely notable.  This was Tuesday night, after I had spent all day Tuesday writing and had finished a third of my Christology paper only to have some sort of computer glitch delete all my work.  Yeah.  I got so mad that I decided to stay up until I got my last 2 papers completely done.  It didn't exactly work out that way, as I slept from 6-7:30 Wednesday morning and then from 2-6 Wednesday night.  Regardless, I got very, VERY little sleep last week.

-The comical state of my trashcan by Thursday morning.  Photo evidence of my dependency on Diet Coke (PS they're 1.5 litre bottles...):

-Researching for and writing a total of 25 pages worth of papers within the span of about 5 days (not including the 2 papers from the week before).  Turning in that last paper on Thursday was an awesome feeling, especially since it was the last piece of work I had to do before finals in November.

Thursday:

After getting all my stuff turned in on Thursday, I still had to go to macro and community dinner.  But after we had to start getting ready for the birthday/Halloween party that night!  A couple of the girls from Perth (including Katie!) came for the party, which was held in the back room of the bar that's right down the street from Port Lodge called The Orient.  I was in a group doing The Price is Right:  we had a guy as Bob Barker, his girlfriend as one of the Barker Beauties, and then me, Katie (Freo Katie, not Perth Katie)and Andria were contestants with outrageous homemade shirts.  My shirt said "Remember me, Bob?"  And then over my very pregnant belly: "IT'S YOURS"  It definitely got a lot of comments at the party, haha.

Friday:

Friday morning was Australian History class and tutorial, then I finally made pizookie for the girls here in Freo (and proceeded to feel sick for the rest of the day lol).  That stuff is amazing but it's definitely something you can only do once in a while.  I'm glad I was able to pass it on to other people though; it's too good not to.  We were originally scheduled to leave for our weekend at Rottnest Island at 3:30 on Friday, but some of us got our tickets changed to leave Saturday morning at 9:30 instead.  It wasn't that warm outside, was supposed to rain, and I was exhausted from the week.  I proceeded to go back to Port Lodge and sleep for most of the rest of the day, and when I heard the rain pouring down and the thunder crashing I was so glad I was in my bed instead of a tent.

Saturday:

Saturday morning we left for Rotto, and 40 of us got to ride the speedboat ferry there instead of the regular ferry, which was an awesome decision!  The waves were pretty rough, so it was sort of like riding a roller coaster.  It actually ended up being the best part of the weekend...go figure.

I guess I should explain about Rotto a little first.  It's an island about 19 km off the coast of Freo, and it's actually a nature reserve so a lot of it (all of it?) is protected.  It's tiny though, at 11 km long and 4.5 km wide, and there's just one little shopping area with a couple of fast food places, a general store, a souvenir shop, etc.  Bikes are basically the only form of transportation besides the tourist buses that go around the island.  It's a popular tourist spot and is supposed to be one of the "must-do's" when visiting Perth or Freo.  It has a resort (I think), a hostel, villas/bungalows to rent, and campsites.  We were at a campsite because we didn't book early enough to get a villa.

So after we got to there, we rented bikes and took our stuff to the campground, and Betsy and I set up our tent that our Australian History lecturer had lent us on Friday.  Then a bunch of us set out to try to find the nice beach we had heard about.  We took off on our bikes for what turned out to be a really hilly ride.  Apparently none of us realised that Rotto is not flat. At all.  It had been threatening rain all day, and when we finally got there the skies opened up so we went back to the campsite.

After waiting out the rain, me and 4 others decided to go bike around the island to check it out, and we set out for what ended up being a 2+ hour ride.  I'm not sure if we did the whole ride around the island, but it sure felt like it.  The scenery was beautiful (still really hilly though) and we saw some gorgeous beaches.  It wasn't warm enough to actually go for a swim though.  The only downsides to the bike ride were the rain that started falling towards the end of the ride, and the crappy loose chain on my bike that made me have to stop way too many times to fix it.  But all in all I'm glad we rode around because otherwise all I would've seen of the island basically would have been the campsite and Subway.

Later in the afternoon, we all (a lot of the ND students plus a good number of the other study abroad students) just hung around the campsite until it was time for dinner.  Dinner for me was Subway, and dessert was the Nutella that me, Katie and Andria shared over girl talk in the tent.  Then Betsy joined girl talk, followed later by Kevin, Erin, Jackie and Kim.  By that point the tent was pretty much full, and we all went down to the beach where some people had already built a fire in a pit.

We sat around the fire for a while, and Erin, Jackie, Andria and I played a game where you make up a ghost story by each person adding on a couple of sentences to the story.  It involved a beach, a big group of kids, an abandoned barber shop, and a lighthouse, and alternated between being hysterically funny and actually kind of creepy.

Sunday:

No one slept very well that night because some of the people were being super loud and obnoxious and also because it was fairly cold.  I also didn't bring a pillow and just had my thin airplane blanket.  So by the time morning rolled around, everyone was ready to get on the 10:30 ferry back to Freo instead of the 4:30 one, and luckily there was enough room for us all.  I'm sort of disappointed the trip wasn't better, because other abroad groups have raved that going to Rotto is the one thing you have to do while you're here, but I think a lot of it had to do with the subpar weather which no one can really do anything about.  Oh well.

Oh yeah, here's a picture of the little kangaroo-type animals that live on the island.  They're really cute, but there's a ton of them and they're everywhere on the island.  They're called quokkas.

So anyway, the rest of today was awesome and lazy and involved lots of lounging and TV and movie watching.  This week of classes is our last one and is just a review week, so we're all looking forward to a break.  Then after that is study week, then 2 weeks of exams, then we're leaving Freo for good.  It's sort of hard to believe it's so close to being over.  But there's still more good times to be had before that gets here!

Aaaand now it's time to go sleep some more :)

<3

Caffeine.

That's what's keeping me going right now. I'm currently on my second 1.5 litre bottle of Diet Coke following two 1 litre bottles over the course of the weekend. I haven't had any Diet Coke here before this week...with such a minimal work load there was hardly any need for it. I forgot about how much I love it though. I don't know why anyone would ever drink coffee or tea over Diet Coke. I mean, yeah, there's the whole more caffeine thing, but what you gain in energy you lose in taste. Times a million. Moral of the story: Diet Coke = awesome.

So the reason I'm drinking so much of the stuff is because I'm smack in the middle of my 2 hell weeks, aka 5 papers due over the course of last week and this week. Last week I had two to turn in on Friday, and this week I have one due Tuesday, one due Wednesday, and one due Thursday. Right now it's Monday night and I shouldn't even be taking the time to write in here but I need a break.

I'm not really sure how I survived last spring on so little sleep. Pretty much every day I would go to bed between the hours of 2 and 4 and wake up between 7 and 9 and somehow managed to be coherent and alive most of the time at school? Then I come here and have one 5-hour night's sleep and I'm exhausted. I guess it all depends on what you're used to.

Thursday night and the weekend are definitely my lights at the end of the tunnel right now. By Thursday at 4 pm, I will have handed in all class assignments until finals in November. Then that night is a double birthday party/Halloween party, followed by a weekend at Rottnest Island. Cannot. Wait.

In theory, here's what I should be an expert on by the time Thursday rolls around:
-The effect of colonisation on the success of the Nattukottai Chettiar Indian caste in Burma (Business in Asia paper)
-The macroeconomics of the Great Depression (Macroecon paper...shocker)
-The effect of colonisation on the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka (Asia Culture paper)
-The Christology and soteriology of the Book of Hebrews (Christology paper)
-The effect of the Anzac legend on Australian national identity (Australian history paper)

In more exciting news, I got to see Katie and Kenzie for the first time in a while this weekend! They came to Freo on Saturday and we got to catch up with each other and go to the beach. AND they baked cookies. It was really awesome to see them and I think we're going to be going up to Perth next week so we'll get to hang out more over the next couple of weeks :)

I guess that's it for now; I've probably procrastinated long enough. The Book of Hebrews calls...

My brain is sore.

Whoa. Just finished paper 1 of 3.  Granted, it's just a rough draft and I technically haven't done the actual referencing yet, but if you know me at all you know that for me to finish a paper a day ahead of time, much less 4, is basically unheard of.  And it turned out to be longer than it probably needs to be and definitely longer than I intended it to be.  When did I turn into such a nerd?!?

Oh, and one of the papers that was supposed to be due Friday (Asia Culture) got pushed back to Tuesday...YAY.  That just leaves one 2000-worder for Friday.  But I want to get the Asia Culture one done before the weekend because I'll need that time to start/work on my two papers due next week. Yikes.

Anyway, I just wanted to write in here about how weird it is that we've reached the point where people are putting together lists of things we still need to do before we leave.  Here's what mine looks like:

-Rottnest Island (aka Rotto).  Not too worried about this one because we already have campsites booked for the weekend after we get everything finally turned in - woooo.  Basically all of Port Lodge is going to be there spending the weekend camping, swimming, snorkeling, checking out the island, etc.  

-Kangaroo Island.  This is a small island in Perth with a bunch of wild kangaroos living on it.  Some of Port Lodge checked it out a few months ago and saw a bunch of wild kangaroos and got some really cool pictures of them.

-Surf lessons.  You can pay like $75 to spend the day learning how to surf and I realllly want to try it! If this happens it'll probably be during study week.

-Sunday Session.  This is a Freo specialty where people spend all Sunday afternoon at bars and cafes drinking basically.  It's supposed to be great fun and somehow me and a bunch of my friends haven't been to one yet.  This is a must.

-E-Shed Markets.  A different set of markets across town that I haven't been to yet because we always go to the Fremantle Markets.  If I don't get to it it won't be the end of the world because apparently the Freo Markets are a lot better, but I kind of just want to check it out.

-Turkish restaurant.  There's a couple Turkish restaurants here that I always pass and the food looks so yummy but I haven't been to one yet.  Preference to the one with the picture of the Genie from Aladdin on the sign.  I really just want a kebab, is that so much to ask?

-Red Bull Air Race.  This is another one that should definitely be happening.  On November 1 & 2 "twelve of the world's most talented pilots will compete against each other in a race based on speed, precision, and skill" over the skies of Perth (yeah that was from the website).  It's the first study weekend, so I definitely want to go.

-Pizookie.  For those of you non-3 Westerners, pizookie is an amazing dessert of amazingness that basically consists of a pan of half baked cookie dough covered with vanilla ice cream.  Reserved for the most horrendous of days/weeks.  I mentioned it at the beginning of the semester and people have really been wanting to try it but we've just never gotten around to it.  But I think it might be happening this weekend what with all the stuff we have due...so excited.

And that's all I've got for now!

Margaret River Highlights

Yes I should be working on any one of my 3 major papers due on Friday (8000 words...count 'em), but I figure since I haven't posted about our Margaret River bus trip I should probably go ahead and do that before I forget about stuff I want to mention. SO. Here were the highlights:

-Having a bus completely to ourselves. There were 16 of us and we had a bus for probably about 18 people so it worked out perfectly.

-Our crazy Italian Australian bus driver Enzo. Basically the first thing he said to us was "The only rule on this trip is that there are no rules." The second was "Do you guys like beer?" We were sort of stunned for about .2 seconds, then burst out laughing because he obviously didn't know us. He was really chill and let us have input about our schedule and where we wanted to go and didn't care how loud we were on the bus...which leads me to my next highlight:

-Obnoxiously loud singalongs on the bus. Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, basically any other 90's song you can think of...we pretty much relived our childhoods through music. This was after the brewery stop, if that helps you get the picture...

-Our first beach stop. Enzo bought a footy first thing that morning, so a bunch of us kicked it around for a while (which, for the record, is a lot harder and more painful to do without shoes) and then about 8 of us played a game of American football with it. So fun!

-Brewery. Ok yes, we might have been slightly inebriated, but I really did like trying all the different kinds of Australian beers...well, some more than others. It was definitely a good experience for someone like me who thinks all beer tastes pretty much the same. Note: I now realize it does not.

-Taking crazy amounts of pictures at the gorgeous beach. Also post-brewery. Some pictures are better than others, as you might imagine.

-First hostel experience. The first hostel we stayed at was nicer than I expected, and the room we had was clean and bug-free (YAY). And I got a bottom bunk! Score. The only downside was a higly erratic shower (both temperature-wise and waterstream-wise) the next morning.

-State capital discussion over dinner. Yes, between five of us (the ones who chose the pizza place for dinner) I think we went through all of them. This all began when an Australian sitting a table away from us asked us if we were from America and then proceeded to ask something about Sacramento (I don't remember why...the effects of the brewery and the day hadn't quite worn off yet). This also led to a three-way bet about state capitals which I lost because apparently the capital of Massachusetts isn't Lexington. My fourth grade teacher Mrs. Leonard would be so ashamed (along with probably everyone else who knows me...) Fortunately the winner of the bet has failed to remember to collect his $5 (knock on wood)

-Learning how to box. Sort of. My friend Kevin does Bengal Bouts back at Notre Dame and I seem to have a hidden desire to get in a fight so when we got back from dinner he started teaching me how to box! Better not mess with me :)

-Winery. The next morning our first stop was a winery and even though I didn't feel quite up to tasting, the scenery in the vineyard was gorgeous. AND across the street I saw my first wild kangaroo! About time.

-Scenery in general. Honestly, I've never driven through more beautiful scenery than in Southwest Australia. Everywhere we drove was just rolling hills, incredibly green pastures, random trees, little ponds, sheep, etc. Honestly, I would have been happy just sitting in the bus the entire time listening to music and looking out the window. I was enthralled. It's hard for me to even describe.

-Bicentennial Tree. This is a 75 metre tree in the middle of a national park FILLED with huge trees (think Redwood forest in California). But this tree is special because they actually allow the public to climb it! The only catch is that the ladder consists of rebar rods stuck into the tree in the shape of a spiral staircase. Yeah. No magic safety net, no harnesses. Just some metal rods. Some of our group decided not to climb at all, some climbed all the way to the top lookout tower, and some (like me) got to the platform about halfway, took some pictures, and decided (since it started HAILING and 75 metres is reallllly high when it's windy, wet, and...well, really all the time) that that was far enough. The climb down was definitely more intense than the climb up because you really have to look down to make sure you get your foot on the bar. Rule of thumb: keep all four limbs touching the bars at all times. Honestly it was probably the most nervous I've been in a long time.

-Treetop walk. Yes, by then it was cold and windy and rainy and at the time we were all complaining about all of the above, but walking on the platforms in the canopy of the forest was a really awesome and unique experience. Definitely glad we went ahead and did it.

-Scenery. Did I mention the scenery? It deserves another mention.

-Cheese-eating on the bus. Looking back I'm not entirely sure why someone had 10+ slices of cheese with them on the bus, but somehow we found out and proceeded to eat them on the bus ride to our second hostel. It was HILARIOUS at the time. Really.

-Exploring the town of Albany, WA. Sunday morning we got up early to walk around the town, and I'm really glad we did because it was such an adorable little mountain town. Not too much to see, but it really reminded me of the North Georgia mountains and made me miss home and fall. I felt like I should be seeing the leaves changing colors, but since it's spring here that obviously wasn't about to happen.

-Gap and natural bridge. One of our stops Sunday morning. The gap was just how it sounds: a huge (deep) gap in the rocks where water crashed up into. It's hard for me to describe and a lot cooler if you look at the pictures. The land bridge is about the same - a huge rock formation that basically formed a bridge above the water. Definitely not a bridge to walk on though. The whole area was gorgeous and really looked like it could have been straight out of Lord of the Rings.

-Blowholes.  Another stop on Sunday. We had to walk what seemed like forever from the bus to get to them, but once we got there they were so cool! Its pretty much just these tiny slivers in huge cliffs where mist and air are blown up through them super fast when the waves crash into them. And the waves were HUGE that day so when we sat over the holes and the waves crashed into the rocks, it seriously felt like we were riding a roller coaster, that's how fast the air was pushed up through them.

-The scenery. Yes, again.

Ok this turned out to be a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, so now I need to go keep working on my paper(s)!

I mean, I'll probably be posting again soon because it's a great way to procrastinate...

Because I take ridiculous amounts of pictures....

...I have actually run out of space on my Picasa account.  I've used 94% of my 1 GB, so I'm going to have to use a different site for the rest of my pictures while I'm here.  I've uploaded my Margaret River pictures to Snapfish and I'm going to try to post the link in here, but I'm not sure if it will work the same way Picasa does.  So if you can't see the album by clicking the link, or it asks you for login info or anything, just let me know and give me your email address and I can share the album that way.

http://www1.snapfish.com/photolibrary/t_=146642778

Spring Break Recap Part 1: Broome

So whoa.  I'm now back from the most exotic, exciting, and exhausting spring break I have ever experienced.  Just the thought of recapping it all is daunting, but I'm going to do my best.  Here goes...

Last Saturday morning was our plane ride to Broome, Western Australia.  My ticket was for a middle seat and my friend Kevin was supposed to be sitting in the window seat next to me, but since I got to the row first I stole his seat because I wanted to take pictures on the way into Broome (still kind of feel bad about it...oops lol).  I did sleep through lunch though, so I guess karma found a way to catch up to me.  I woke up before our descent to red dirt as far as the eye could see, which was fasciniating in and of itself, but the real show began when all of a sudden out of nowhere appeared the coastline with brilliant blue water and white sand beaches.  It was without a doubt the most amazing view from a plane I've ever seen.  (And actually this reminds me, I put pictures up from the trip on my Picasa site).  

After we landed, we walked through the airport (which looked more like a cabana than an airport) and boarded the bus for a 5-minute bus ride to the NDA Broome Campus.  It was tiny, and empty since they were on break as well that week, and we stayed at the student hostel on campus there the first night.  That afternoon they (being our trip leaders - 3 professors) took us to Cable Beach, which is supposed to be ranked one of the top 5 beaches in the world, and it definitely lived up to the hype.  The tide was out so it seemed like there was a mile of sand before the water even started.  After we walked around taking pictures, me, Katie, Andria, and Sam went on a 30-minute camel ride!  Katie and I were at the very back of the group on a camel named Aslan - the oldest of the group at 16, and the biggest at over one ton!  It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  

After the camel ride, we went back to hang out with the rest of the group and played in the water for a while just fighting with with waves, which was actually pretty exhausting.  Then we all took some sunset pictures before heading back to the campus.  That night we basically gorged ourselves on pizza since we were starving, then a bunch of us played Pictionary and a couple other games for a while before going to bed.  It was a ton of fun; I completely forgot how much I love that game!

The next day we met up with our Aboriginal guides (a husband and wife team, Colin and Maria, and two of their sons, Bruce and Phillip) and started the drive into the Kimberley (the Outback).  We made a couple stops along the way: at an Aboriginal church and at an Aboriginal community for lunch.  After about 4 hours of driving we ended up at camp, which had an amazing view of a bay.  We put our stuff in our tents and then just hung out until dinner, which was some kind of stew that Maria made.  After dinner once the sun went down we all sat around the campfire and had what Peta, our head professor, called "College of Knowledge," which basically entailed asking us thought-provoking questions and going around the circle and answering them.  What really stuck with me that first night though was just how incredible the night sky was; I've never seen so many stars in my life.  I just couldn't stop looking at them.

We got up with the sun the net morning (aka between 5:30 and 6), had breakfast, and then spent a few hours talking with Colin about Aboriginal culture, which turned out to be a really interesting discussion.  Then we packed lunches and loaded up in the trucks to drive to a site where we saw 7000-year-old Aboriginal footprints and one of the most amazing beaches I've ever seen.  And after we ate we got to go in and swim.  The only bummer about the day was that my sunglasses broke :(  Not good for a vacation in the blazing heat.  Later we went back to camp to chill out for a while, then went to an overlook for the sunset.  The landscape looked like something out of Jurassic Park or a car commercial or something - huge red rocks and hills.

Day 3 consisted of going to another Aboriginal community to talk to one of the main elders named Uncle Bundy, who taught us how to make spears and let us get into groups and make our own spears.  Basically they gave us the branches and we had to heat them over the fire, straighten them, and sharpen one edge into a point.  What amazes me is that they still hunt with spears and boomerangs, not guns.  It really almost felt like stepping back in time.  He also showed us how to make and throw hunting boomerangs, which I think aren't actually supposed to come back to you.  Pretty much all the rest of the day was spent at camp practicing throwing the spears at a cardboard target.

On our last full day, they took us to an area that sort of reminded me of the marshes of Georgia.  I think it was a bay or something, except the tide was wayyy out, so basically we were trekking through mud.  They showed us how to grind up a certain root to mix with mud so that when you put it in a fishing hole, it makes the fish come close to the surface for air so it's easier to spear them or even catch the with your bare hands.  They guys of the group spend a while trying to catch the fish, and the girls watched and took pictures.  Then Phillip took some of us over to some rocks to learn how to collect the oysters that are embedded in them.  Eventually the tide started coming in (way in) and we left to go back to camp and eat lunch and try some of the fish they guys had caught.  After lunch we went to a hatchery where we saw a bunch of tanks where fish were being bred, then went to another beach to have a swim.  That night we had a BBQ and I tried kangaroo for the first time...it was actually really delicious.

Our last morning basically just consisted of getting up, packing up, and driving back to Broome to catch our flight back.  All in all it was an amazing trip and definitely one that I'll never forget.  I know I had some more things I wanted to say about it, but right now I'm really tired so I think I'll just leave this post as it is for now and maybe come back to it later.

Like I said, pictures are up on my Picasa page; enjoy!  Part 2 of my spring break will be posted within the next day or so hopefully :)

North and South

It's almost spring break!!!  All I have left for the week is Macro today and Australian History tomorrow and then it's a full week off of school...yesssss.  This post is called North and South because for spring break, our group is going to be heading north to Broome, and then south to Margaret River.

Broome

So at 7:30 on Saturday morning, our whole Notre Dame group is piling in a bus, heading to the airport, and flying up to Broome, Australia.  This trip is actually a field trip through our Australian History class, so it wasn't planned by us and we don't really know what to expect (besides blazing sunshine and temperatures in the low- to mid-90's throughout the week...eek).  The point of the trip is for us to be able to experience the Australian Outback and spend some time learning about Aborigines and Aboriginal culture, so that will definitely be part of it.  I think we're supposed to be camping in tents, and they told us to bring only old clothes because we're going to be getting really sweaty and dirty.  

We haven't gotten any kind of itinerary because the schedule is going to be very  spontaneous and dependent on the a lot of different factors that could change day-to-day, such as the schedules of the Aborigines we're supposed to visit, etc.  They even told us not to bring a watch so that we can relax and not feel like we have to keep to any kind of schedule.  I'm really excited for this trip, mostly because it sounds it will be a completely new experience (and I haven't been camping in forever lol).  AND Broome is supposed to have some of the world's most beautiful beaches, including Cable Beach, which I'm pretty sure we're going to be visiting.  My only concern is that my camera battery has to last me five days because I won't have any place to recharge it!

So we're going to be in Broome from Saturday until Thursday, when we'll fly back to Perth.  Then we'll have a night in Perth and leave Friday for our trip to Margaret River!

Margaret River

Margaret River is one of the top destinations in Western Australia, mostly because it's a famous wine region.  Kids from previous semesters told us that it's one of the places we need to go while we're here, so one of the girls in our group organized this trip through a travel company and pretty much all of the Notre Dame kids are going.

We're starting out Friday driving south from Perth, and during our drive there, we'll be making stops at several spots to swim (once with dolphins) and check out the scenery (and, of course, eat).  Friday night we're staying in Margaret River.

Then Saturday we'll be going to the forests to check out a 61-metre tree to climb and do a treetop canopy walk.  Then we're heading to another beach for a swim and driving to Albany, where we'll stay the night.

Sunday will be more time to check out the coastline and then to a winery before we head back to Perth.

The itinerary they gave us goes into wayyy more detail than that, but #1. I don't feel like typing it all out and #2. I figure I'll write a much more detailed post when I get back.

So basically, my spring break should be AMAZING and I'm so pumped for it! 

The end :)

Drowned Rat.

That's what I looked like by about 9:30 this morning.  When I left Port Lodge to go run this morning, I noticed the storm clouds gathering over the water but didn't think much of it because it hasn't rained that much here lately.  Well, I got literally halfway through my run - that is, a good mile or more away from the dorm - when the skies opened up and the rain and wind started up like I've never seen here before.  I was going to try to run through it, but when I turned around, the rain was pelting me in the face so hard that I couldn't see, so I ran over an area that was sort of sheltered by some trees.  Several older people were waiting there with their dogs (and raincoats) and I actually met a lady who was from Alabama but moved here years ago.  When the rain slowed down, they all left and I decided it wasn't worth waiting for it to stop, so I high-tailed it through the wind and the rain back to Port Lodge and by the time I got back, there was not a dry spot left on me.  Needless to say, a hot shower was the first order of business and I've spent the rest of the day indoors and in sweats.

Yesterday was not nearly as lazy though.  Me, Katie, and Andria decided we wanted to finally go find King's Park (since our last try was basically a failure), so we packed lunches and took the 12:15 train to Perth.  Once we got there, we just had to hop on a bus and then walk a little ways to get to the park, and it was definitely worth it.  We sat on one of the lawns overlooking the city and ate our lunch, then spent a couple of hours just walking around and taking pictures (which I am uploading to Picasa as I type).  The park is GORGEOUS - amazing views, beautiful flowers and trees, and just a really peaceful atmosphere.  Some parts of it, like the big lawn with the duck pond, really reminded me of something from a Jane Austen novel.  After a few hours of walking, we were pretty tired, so we were really relieved to find a bus stop a lot closer to the park than the one we were dropped off at.  Our reward for all our walking was McDonald's $0.50 ice cream when we got back to Perth, and we were actually on the way out the door when we were stopped in our tracks by an amazing-looking chocolate concoction called a mud muffin, which we proceeded to split.  All in all definitely a successful trip :)

Saturday night was spent watching the first Lord of the Rings with the guys in my New Zealand road trip group.  Seeing all the ridiculous scenery in that movie just made me even more excited to go there, and we're watching the second movie tonight so I'll be even more excited after that!

Friday was a great day too, actually.  In Australian History we watched an Australian movie from the 80's called Galipolli (staring a very young Mel Gibson) about Australia's role in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during WWI.  It was a really interesting movie, and since we didn't have tutorial I was done with class at 10:30.  After lunch I went shopping for cheap clothes and shoes for our trip to Broome (the Outback) next week during Spring Break and was able to find everything I needed, which was a relief!  But THEN, I found some other kind of cheap clothes...Katie and Andria had told me about this store that just opened that was having a huge sale and had some really cute clothes, so about half of the Port Lodge girls went to check it out that afternoon.  All I have to say is AMAZING.  This store is amazing.  It had loads of really cute shirts and almost everything was under $15.  I tried on nothing over $10 and bought two shirts for a total of $14.  I think literally all the girls now own something from there.  We're in love.

After that discovery, a few of us went to footy practice, but there was hardly anyone there so we just did a lot of kicking again.  I'm pretty proud to say I haven't missed a single practice yet.  Later that night was the Uni ball, which a lot of us decided not to go to since it was so expensive ($130...yeah it's an open bar but I think if I tried to drink $130 worth of alcohol I would die).  So, we dressed up anyway and went out to a really nice restaurant called Char Char Bull.  I got a fancy gourmet-ish pizza which was delicious, but honestly I'm happy with Pizza Hut cheese pizza so it doesn't take much to please me.  The experience was fun though.  Later we went out to the bar where the after-party for the bar was held, so we got to meet up with all the kids who went.  

Alright, well I think we're about to watch Lord of the Rings, so I better go.  Only one more week of class before Spring Break!  I'll try to post again before I leave.  Hope y'all have a great week!

<3

BOO.

THIS IS ME BEING MAD.

"Why?", you ask (and even if you don't I'm going to tell you anyway).  BECAUSE I found out my final exam schedule today, and here's how it looks:

Monday, November 10: Christology at 2 PM

Tuesday, November 11: Asia Culture at 2 PM

Wednesday, November 12: Australian History at 9 AM

Friday, November 14: Business in Asia at 9 AM

Wednesday, November 19: Macroecon at 2 PM

If you're wondering why I bolded, italicized, and basically made obnoxious November 11, it's because that's my birthday.  My 21st, to be exact.  Not only do I have an exam on my 21st birthday, I also have one the next morning at 9 AM.  9 AM.

I'm aware that you can probably hear my whining voice right now from all the way on the other side of the world, but seriously? SERIOUSLY?!

Boo. Boo. Boo.